The Matrix: Enter the Fray
by Carribean Pirate
Summary: A new member is caught in the fray, Trinity and Morpheus help him understand; An anonymous 'hacker' gets into the computer system and unleashes the wrath of The Matrix
1. The Staging Area

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Don't know whether you guys like it or not, its been awhile since I bothered to post on FanFiction.Net so, R&R would be good. Thanks ;)  
  
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Chapter 1  
  
The Staging Area.  
  
Gareth looked around him, complete whiteness. Stretching out into nothing. He had awoken, lying on his back and did not have the slightest idea what was going on.  
  
"Welcome friend."  
  
A man clad wearing a leather suit appeared on his right. Gareth thought, shocked by where the man had come from.  
  
"Do not be afraid, my name." he paused, "My name, is Morpheus."  
  
"I still don't get it," Gareth looked anxiously around him and continued, "where the hell am I?"  
  
"This is the Matrix Gareth Williams, you will get your answers in time." With this, he walked backwards and disappeared into the whiteness behind him. Now, another figure's shadow appeared, walking towards his direction.  
  
"You must be Gareth," the shadowy figure spoke while continuing to walk in his direction. The figure soon appeared fully in his view, it was a woman clad in a black top and tight pants, together with a black coat and shades. "My name is Trinity." She grinned at Gareth.  
  
"Another one? Where the heck are all of you coming from?!" he demanded an answer from Trinity, resisting the urge to stand up and grab her by the throat. "I want answers, I want them NOW!" he started to scream.  
  
"Relax Gareth-" Trinity started, but got cut off by him. "'Relax Gareth, relax Gareth'! Is that all you people can tell me?! I don't care, I will NOT relax until I get my answers!"  
  
Trinity pulled out her mobile phone from her long black coat and punched in a couple of digits, then put the receiver to her ear. "Operator? Its me, he wants answers, lets give him answers."  
  
"You got it."  
  
The voice on the other end of the line replied, and then hung up. Trinity turned to Gareth, smirked and said, "You'll get your answers now." Then she walked up to Gareth and stood beside him. All of a sudden, flashes of movement and loud bangs were heard. Gareth was in confusion, "What the?!" he screamed above the noises. The banging and flashes of movement stopped and in front of them stood many bookshelves piled with books. The shelves stretched upwards. upwards, into the whiteness. Gareth was bewildered as he stared doubtingly at the bookshelves, he could not believe his eyes. Trinity broke the silence first, "Here are your answers," she grinned for the second time "Go ahead, look for them." Her smile widened as Gareth used his hands to get off the ground. All this while, he had been sitting on his butt as he had conversations with the 'imaginary people' known as Morpheus and Trinity. Once he stood up, he approached cautiously toward one of the bookshelves. In front of the bookshelf, he reached for one of the books and instantly recoiled when the bookshelves flew back up into the 'sky'.  
  
"Ahaha. Come on, I was just kidding. I expected you to be smarter than that." Trinity giggled.  
  
"Yeah right." he stared up at the sky, looking for the bookshelves.  
  
"You won't find them up there Gareth, anyway, its time for you to get your real answers." Trinity groped around in her shoulder-to-toe coat for her mobile phone again. She found it and pulled it out, then dialed in the same number as before. "Operator, get Morpheus back here."  
  
"Yeah, got it." The Operator said, and then hung up again.  
  
An ordinary brown door with a black framing dropped from the sky a foot away from Gareth, shocking and causing him to jump. Both of them watched intently at the door, only Gareth was unaware of what was about to come out of that door. The doorknob clicked and turned slowly, then the door swung forward. Inside the door was all dark, and then a figure with broad shoulders stepped forward. Morpheus.  
  
"Hello again, Gareth Williams. Its nice to see you again." Morpheus spoke.  
  
"Hello. what was your name again?" Gareth was already confused after all that had happened. He had only remembered Trinity's name.  
  
"My name is Morpheus, Mister Williams."  
  
"Oh yeah. I remember now." Gareth rubbed his forehead with his palm vigorously.  
  
"This," Morpheus opened up his arms and waved around him and continued, "is the Staging Area for the Matrix."  
  
"Wait wait wait." Gareth looked around him. "I don't get it, what's a 'Staging Area' and what in the hell is a 'Matrix'?"  
  
"Well, long explanation short, the Staging Area is where we suit up. We can find clothes, weapons, armor, and vehicles etcetera. The Matrix. just take it as that -- its real life in VR. It's not easy to explain, so I won't waste my time trying to make you understand." Morpheus took out his own mobile phone, the one similar to Trinity's and called the Operator.  
  
"Yo, Operator here." The voice said over the line.  
  
"Give the kid an example." As Morpheus said this, his eyes glanced towards Gareth.  
  
Morpheus kept his mobile phone in his coat and said, "Brace yourself." Immediately, rows of guns sped by like bullet trains and then screeched to a halt. As everything else in the Staging Room, the gun racks stretched into the white horizon of the Matrix.  
  
To Be Continued. 


	2. Suit Up

*Hey, thanks for your review Jester, appreciate it. Check back soon for more of my stories ;)*  
  
Chapter 2 Suit Up.  
  
"I see. I get it now," he pulled out a gun from the gun rack and examined it, wondering if it were real. "all of this. is just a fake?" He continued to meddle with the rifle, and a round went off accidentally. Out of instinct, he dropped the gun and backed away. In front of his eyes, the rifle lost its colour, became a green digital frame and disintegrated into dust. "Whoa." he gaped in awe.  
  
"You are not exactly correct Mister Williams, the Matrix as you see it, might be just a imaginary world. On the contrary, its in fact as real as it can get." Finishing his sentence, he walked up to Gareth and punched him in the stomach. Gareth was shocked by Morpheus sudden hostility and immediately reacted by punching back at him with all his might. However, Morpheus dodged his attacks with amazing speed and agility, to Gareth, the way Morpheus moved was just a blur.  
  
"Okay, another weird thing, how'd you do that?" Gareth noticed that Morpheus was only showing him how real the Matrix was.  
  
"You'll know in time." He smiled through his black shades. "Time to get you suited up kid." He smiled again. "Operator, hit it."  
  
Like before, racks of guns, suits and overalls fell from the sky. Gareth noticed that he was a bit too close to the falling zone of a gun rack, so he moved back. Once the racks had stopped falling from the sky, he browsed through the many suits and overalls, not daring to touch the guns yet. He looked at Morpheus and Trinity; both were wearing black outfits, and then looked at himself. He snorted and took a black suit off the clothes rack, went over the overalls rack and randomly pulled out one. After selecting his clothes, he saw a rack full of shades. "Hmm." he pondered. Trinity and Morpheus looked at each other and smirked. Gareth's eyes were caught by a silver light-reflecting shade and took it off the rack too. After choosing his apparel, a changing room dropped on the ground on his right. He opened the door and went in. Not long after he went in, he came out looking very similar to someone Trinity and Morpheus knew. The first person that came to their mind was Neo. His face, his hair, his figure; all matched. For the first time in a long time, Gareth smiled slightly, obviously satisfied with the clothes he had chosen. His new clothes had apparently made him more aware of his surroundings, his body language showed it. When he approached the gun racks section, Morpheus walked over to him. "This is where the real deal starts, pick up as many weapons as you want. They'll serve you well when you start going out with us." With this, Gareth strolled leisurely down the many gun racks as if he were at the grocery store. He took a dual gun pistol holster and strapped it onto his chest, together with a set of USPs. He went further down the aisles and pulled out a long M14. However, he did not know how to use any rifles. "Pity." he sulked, looking longingly at the assault rifle. He put it back and continued down. Morpheus and Trinity were following him, making sure he didn't try to fool around with any of the guns. As Gareth walked further and deeper into the arsenal of weapon, he figured that he didn't know how to handle most of them.  
  
"I might as well do with these two pistols here, I know nuts about rifles and stuff like that." He told Morpheus and Trinity.  
  
"Very well, these will be the weapons you will be training on." Morpheus nodded thoughtfully at Gareth while Trinity did nothing but smile.  
  
"Now its time for you to meet the crew. Operator, get us the hell out of here." Morpheus said through his futuristic mobile phone, which he had taken out.  
  
Gareth's eyes flew open like shutters. He sat straight up. He felt like he had just awoken from a nightmare, sweat was flowing profusely down his forehead. Immediately, he looked around, afraid to find the same blankness of the world he encountered in his 'dream'. Fortunately, he met two familiar faces opposite his armchair, although they were not wearing the same black clothing as before. Morpheus stood up and went over to Gareth. "Welcome to the Nebuchunezzar, I am the captain of this hovercraft." He greeted Gareth again warmly.  
  
To be continued. 


	3. Welcome Aboard

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Hey guys, I'm back again. Hope this next chapter will spark your interest in my story. Don't worry about the starting, I know its boring. I'll try to get to the exciting parts soon. Without further ado, here is the next chapter. Love ya'! ;) ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////  
  
Chapter 3 Welcome Aboard.  
  
"Welcome aboard the Nebuchunezzar, Gareth." Morpheus had never addressed Gareth so casually before, he guessed that calling him 'Mister Williams' was no longer valid on board his very on ship together with his crew. The surroundings were dark and gloomy, the walls lighted up with a dim glow of light coming from who knows where? Gareth sat up in his armchair, instantly he felt a searing pain on the back of his neck. His hand flew to the spot where the pain came from and felt around. His fingers found something metallic and round with many holes around the perimeter. At least, that was what Gareth thought it might look like.  
  
"Hey, that's him. That's the guy!" a male voice shouted from somewhere in the ship.  
  
"Really? Its Gareth, the Gareth the one who survived the blast?!" another voice answered, somewhat unbelieving the other voice.  
  
Gareth heard the clink clanking of boots or shoes on the metal grating of the hovercraft. The sounds grew louder with each footstep, soon the footsteps stopped and two people appeared just behind where Morpheus and Trinity stood. One of them looked young, had blonde hair, a medium build and was donning a pair of denim pants together with a long sleeved shirt with the words 'FcuK' in bold on the chest section. His attire made him look like a computer hacker in New York, no matter how you look at him. The other man looked slightly older than the computer hacker, he had graying hair, was wearing a white shirt and long blue pants. His shirt was stained a bit by oil here and there; it was also torn in certain parts. "Obviously an engineer of something." Gareth thought. Morpheus stepped aside and pushed the two men to the front of him. "This little fella," he messed up the computer hacker's hair a bit with his hand, "is Switch, our on-board human supercomputer." He smiled and patted Switch on the shoulder. "While this guy," he gestured with his hand to the man on his left, "is our mechanic and weapons engineer." The man nodded at Gareth and said, "Name's Cypher buddy." All of a sudden, sirens were blaring and emergency lights were flashing red. Morpheus started giving out orders, pointing out this and that, only now he had remembered about Gareth, so he said to him,  
  
"Gareth, I want you to stay here, do NOT touch anything, we have a situation."  
  
"What situation? I want to help!" he asked a question, followed by a request, which he knew Morpheus would object to.  
  
"This is not the time for explanations Gareth. And no, you cannot help at this time, you are too weak. I'll explain everything to you later. Now, stay here." With this, he turned his back on Gareth and ran off.  
  
"Sentinels, their tailing us! They caught our broadcast signal captain!" a man in a black shirt shouted from the bridge of the Nebuchunezzar.  
  
"Lose em'!" Morpheus ordered. "Trinity, Cypher, get to the weapons and hold them off till we can get to a safe zone." He sounded tense but his faced showed no signs of fear or tension.  
  
Trinity and Cypher rushed off to the back of the hovercraft one behind the other. "God damnit, I knew it was a bad idea to broadcast so near to 01." Trinity gasped as she and Cypher made their journey to the weapons stations. "Yeah, whatever you say." Cypher replied behind her. "Crangggggg! Screeeee!!" a lurch and sliding of metal on each other was heard and the entire hovercraft tilted sideways. Another sudden movement of the ship and it threw everyone off their feet, except for Gareth who was still sitting comfortably in his nice big armchair.  
  
"What in the hell.?" Cypher stopped, looking upwards, seeing a hole in the ship's metallic ceiling. He also saw a set of red glowing 'eyes', which grew bigger, and smaller, zooming in and out as it tried to get a clear image of Cypher.  
  
To be continued. 


End file.
